I’ve posted below a transcript from another recorded interview with a Universal Credit recipient made at Oldham foodbank on 13 October.
I post this transcript to show you three things:
– The debts people on low incomes must pay (particularly debt imposed by welfare reform)
– The way the DWP deducts random repayment sums for DWP loans and tax credit debt from Universal Credit payments without telling people, or agreeing manageable amounts
– The fact that people are hit by so many debt demands from councils and the DWP that they give up on all of it. Which is entirely understandable. There’s no answer to any of this, unless a philanthropic someone suddenly hands over £5000+ to clear these debts.
K, the woman in this story (she didn’t want her name published) was paying the bedroom tax, rent arrears, credit card debt, a benefit overpayment she didn’t understand, working tax credit debt, a DWP social fund loan debt and council tax debt.
Said K:
“…I don’t know where it’s come from. I didn’t even know if could go back that far [the benefit overpayment demand K had received]…it’s 2008, or 2009, and that’s housing benefit overpayment… I came out of work last year and they told [me]… working tax credits, they’ve overpaid me by £1000. They’re taking out £50 a month and I can’t do nothing about it, yeah. They just took it out, so basically, altogether, what comes out of my money, what they took is £70 a month…”
And:
“Universal Credit – [it’s] really hard. I’ve got to miss one bill [to] pay another bill. Moving it [money] around… you always get letters through your door. It’s like – I don’t get paid every month until the 18th. I’ve got a court letter now in my pocket… I’ve got to go there [court] because I can’t pay my poll [sic] tax until the 18th of the month and they want it on the first.”
Trying to sort problems out with councils and the DWP on the phone, by email, or via Universal Credit’s famously useless online journals really can be impossible. God knows I’ve canvassed that.
It’s not at all unusual to hear people say things like, “fuck it. I can’t pay that. They can come and get me.”
So.
I’m not trying to write sob stories here. I’m trying to draw a picture of the chaos – the endless, unfathomable paperwork, the weird benefit payment totals and sudden deductions from benefits, the demands for money for new debts, or debts from days gone by.
I’m trying to say that in or out of work, people will not have the money to get on top of these debts. I’m also saying it’s time the political class STFU about deserving and undeserving poor, and acknowledged the yawning gaps between the Haves and Have Nots, and the experiences and opportunities of these respective groups. Welfare reformers can argue all they like that people should find the money and shouldn’t run up debts, but that ain’t happening. At all. Time for a new idea. Writing off some of these debts would be a starter.
I have conversations like the one below ALL THE TIME.
Here’s the transcript (Oldham foodbank, Friday 13 October 2017):
“I just don’t have enough money to get by, eh. Because the money that I get goes on bills, don’t it.”
What money do you get?
“Universal credit. At the moment, I’m on £548 a month.”
Does that include rent?
They allocated me £290 for my rent… I’ve got to put £60 towards it, plus. I’ve got to pay for the bedroom tax, because I live in a two-bedroom and it’s only me.
Is it [your landlord] First Choice Homes?
It’s Great Places. [So, you’ve got two bedrooms]. They didn’t say how much… they just take it. I’ve just got to pay for it, basically.
Do they ever give you a DHP [a discretionary housing payment to cover the rent shortfall]?
I’ve just put in for one, but that’s only until December, a couple of month… I’m in rent arrears, so that will be going into rent arrears, so that’s going into benefits… Rent arrears is £350… me credit card, that’s £3500. I was [in] benefit overpayment. [There’s a bill] from 2008… it’s five grand that I’ve got to pay back, yeah.
…I don’t know where it’s come from. I didn’t even know if could go back that far [the benefit overpayment demand K had received]…it’s 2008, or 2009, and that’s housing benefit overpayment… I came out of work last year and they told [me]… working tax credits, they’ve overpaid me by £1000. They’re [the DWP] taking out £50 a month and I can’t do nothing about it, yeah. They just took it out, so basically, altogether, what comes out of my money, what they took is £70 a month…”
So, bedroom tax, £50 for tax credit and £20 for [the DWP] social fund [loan]… what I had in… when I first came out of work, to go and get food, well, you got to, because nothing is for free… the social fund, well, I finished [paying one social fund off] and then I got one when I first came out of work, because I had no food. I’m still paying it now, but I don’t know how much of that I’ve got left.
They take £50 a month…
There’s nothing left after the deductions… I just keep getting passed pillar to post, pillar to post. Yesterday, for the foodbank, we walked all the way up to Chadderton, to Huddersfield Road… got told to go to… and apparently, there isn’t a foodbank [there].
We walked three-and-a-half hours yesterday just to find a foodbank. Because the council or whatever told us Huddersfield Street… they said there were no, we couldn’t find ….
Have you got any food?
I’m going to get some now. I did not get any food yesterday. My mate fed me yesterday…This is my first time in here. You see, after today, I get three more [food parcels] and…
I worked in an old people’s home and I was a housekeeper.
And then you left?
Yes, for a better job, I thought. More hours and more pay… and it turns out… they were picking me up at half six [in the morning]. I were back home for 12 o’clock and how am I supposed to run a house… I were only getting paid for the hours there [at work, so no pay for travelling time]. I was there…[at the previous job], I were dead happy. I’d been there for like, ten year… if me health gets better, I’m planning to go back there, but me health is not good at the moment.
Universal Credit – [it’s] really hard. I’ve got to miss one bill [to] pay another bill. Moving it [money] around… you always get letters through your door. It’s like – I don’t get paid every month until the 18th. I’ve got a court letter now in my pocket… I’ve got to go there [court] because I can’t pay my poll tax until the 18th of the month and they want it on the first.”
Have they ever taken you to court [for non payment of council tax]?
Oh yeah… Yeah, it’s not my fault when I get my money. I have to pay £13 a month [in council tax].
What are they like at Oldham jobcentre?
You’ve just got to turn up and sign on. Otherwise, they sanction you. [I haven’t been] sanctioned, thank god. They’re not too bad. They just want you to find work, but I can’t travel that far. I’ve been sick for nearly a year now. I can’t do public transport for panic attacks. Everywhere I go, I’ve got to walk, so it’s like distance….
[I owe] a thousand pound on working tax credit… they just… I rang them up when I came out of work and I told them that I’m not working. They said, “Right, we’ll be in touch.” [I] never heard nowt. Then, when I went on Universal Credit – boom, £50 [deducted each month by the DWP for the tax credit debt].
How can they [the DWP] go into your money [just deduct debt repayment money without telling you]? Why can’t they ring you up or something and say the amount [they’re going to deduct]?
Step Change [the debt advice charity] told me that they [creditors] can’t even turn a pound down [as repayment] if you offer that. I wouldn’t mind if they took five pound, or whatever… five pound a week… it still gives me an extra 30 quid to go and get some food.
This is just… £50 [deducted by the DWP] for me working tax credits. I knew I would have to pay them back. What I didn’t [know was that the DWP would just deduct an amount without telling me]… I thought they was going to ring me up or something and make an appointment and just make a payment… I’ve rung tax credits up, but they say it is out of their hands now [the DWP now collects tax credit debt from Universal Credit claimants]. There is nothing they can do. It’s [the responsibility of] the Department and Work Pension [sic]. I’ve spoken to everyone…. you just get passed from pillar to post, from pillar to post. They give you that many numbers to phone that one….
And so on. I’ll say it again – I’m not seeing any answers here. Something needs to change.
It all goes back to the idea of punishing benefit claimants, of making things deliberately difficult and awkward. But with Universal Credit we have moved beyond merely being nasty, into outright stupidity. People can’t live like this, without food or money for basic rent. And all the DWP can do is to repeat their endless statements about ‘helping people.’ They are not helping people, they are harming them.
Yes – I can barely bring myself to look at statements from the DWP. If they send them at all. Their press office seems to have ground to a halt. Probably a good thing.
Press Office? Propaganda Office more like. Goering taught them everything. “Making Work Pay” = Arbeit Macht Frei.
New placard and blog post related to this posting: DWP: (n) UK-state-run modern slavery gangmaster
AWESOME!! 🙂
Seriously, more like ‘shock & awe’-some.
The DWP try it on with alleged over payments. A couple of years back a guy I knew received a letter saying they had over-paid his JSA back in 2006. Luckily he still had records on his old computr to prove that he wasn’t even claiming JSA onthe dates they said, & was self-employed at the time! But not everyone can prove these things if you havent kept documentation or bank statements etc.
Agreed and then some. This overpayment charging and deducting thing is an absolute rort. I really don’t exaggerate when I say that EVERYONE I meet at foodbanks or jobcentres is having money deducted for some alleged debt or overpayment (which people never knew they could challenge) or a DWP loan which people swear must have been paid back ages ago. This part of the so-called system is out of control.
I’ve said it before – it’s actually quite unusual to meet someone at foodbanks or jobcentres who is getting paid their full benefit entitlement on a regular basis.
well I agree with you & don’t doubt what you are saying, but I must be one of the lucky ones as I am still in receipt of full JSA at the moment but I know that could change at the whim of the DWP, if they suddenly decide I owe them something (which I don’t). Mind you, I have to hand back £16 per month in Council Tax, so in effect I’m not getting “the amount the law says you need to live on”. I struggle to pay bills , am permanently skint, & have to walk everywhere. And I’m one of the ‘lucky’ ones.
The debt-collecting is part of a distinct policy put up by IDS a few years ago. Taking as much money as possible out of the claim saves money, and makes remaining on benefits even less attractive. I know an ex-Carer who had a series of 6 Emergency Loans made back in the 90’s by the old DSS. There was a delay in processing his claim, and so these Emergency Loans were made to temporarily replace his JSA. Instead of the JSA, not in addition to the JSA.
Fast forward to 2011, a new century, and this man is unemployed again. The now DWP took every penny of the loans back out of his JSA, leaving him to exist on £30 a week until it was all paid off. Even though the original loans were instead of JSA payments that he had not received, and so he didn’t really owe anything. But of course he had nothing on paper to prove this, as it had been an informal arrangement with the manager of the local DSS to tide him over until they could pay him properly.
There’s a great bit in the last-but-one Private Eye – in “Number Crunching” on P. 11. It reads:
“6 – Minimum number of weeks a new Universal Credit claimant must wait for first payment, leading to rent arrears, exorbitantly-priced debt and trips to food banks.
1 – Maximum number of weeks before a new MP is met by a ‘dedicated independent parliamentary standards authority election contact’, provided with a salary advance and shown how to claim housing costs in advance.”
That says it all. The political class in Westminster all piss in the same pot, and it’s us against them.
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Ive been on universal credit since july and had nothing but trouble. Waited 8 weeks for first payment meaning i had to find money dor 2 lots of rent costing £700 each time in overdraft not to mention bills and food i needed to feed my 2 children. I then had my accout closed in september for no known reason putting my pay back. Then october my housing element was missing. Waited 2 weeks for it to be sorted making my rent late! Now this morning i have checked my statements amd noticed they have taken £124 the last 3 months for tax credit repayments but ive phoned the debt line and they have no records of debts at all. Im now waiting for them to investigate while im left with a payment of jus £844 for this month and rent bills and food to pay for. Universal credit is a joke i never have been in debt in my life but since july ive managed to get in debt by £1750. I dont even know what to do anymore !